Become Who You Are

Meet Ryan Bush author of Become Who You Are and Designing the Mind. Hear how learning he’s autistic led him to a better understanding of himself and how we can all become who we truly are.

Become Who You Are is for everyone. It’s a must-read for late-diagnosed autistics who’ve spent a lifetime wanting to know.

Buy the Book: https://www.amazon.com/Become-Who-You-Are-Self-Esteem/dp/1737846241/ref=monarch_sidesheet?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theautistic05-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=5da2b9245809a6ac087a2b51b6712b9f&camp=1789&creative=9325

Learn more about the book: https://designingthemind.org/become-who-you-are/

Ryan Bush website: https://designingthemind.org

Learn more about the book: https://designingthemind.org/become-who-you-are/

Ryan Bush website: https://designingthemind.org

Transcript

[All times approximate.]

02:35.40

The Autistic Woman

I want to thank you for being here to talk about your autistic experiences and your most recent book Become Who You Are.

02:52.36

The Autistic Woman

Now you spent over a decade researching the psychology and philosophy of wellbeing but before you wrote become who you are. How did you get to the place where you felt a change was needed.

03:04.13

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, great question. So like you kind of hinted at I have been studying this stuff for a long time I've been very interested in well-being and depression and anxiety and all these sort of mental experiences and I've studied them. From a few different angles I mean one is the sort of traditional psychology research approach I've read a lot into the science of you know psychology but another is ancient philosophy and and thinkers like the stoics and the buddhists who had lots of ideas about the mind and how we can best operate it. And then the other sort of level is my own experience and my own experiments in my in my own brain. Essentially that started from a pretty early age where I was just very curious about my own mind. Um, and so at one point I sort of decided to go part time at my job that I was at. And and put a lot of these insights together into what would become my first book designing the mind the principles of psychoitecture. Um, and interestingly enough it was while I was writing this book and was part time at my job and and all this that the events ah in the second book were kind of playing out. Ah, in real time and so I I found myself in a mental health struggle of my own that was wrapped up in a lot of things my work my identity my sort of neuro divergence it all kind of came together at once in ah, a way that resulted in kind of a.

04:39.43

Ryan A Bush

You know, mild to moderate depression for the period of you know, nine months to a year and it was really through all these experiences that I you know lay out in detail in the book and then I'm happy to talk ah about more that caused a lot of these things I'd been studying for so long to click into place. So I knew a lot of this. Ah, data and research but I didn't understand how it all fit together until I sort of lived it and then a lot of these pieces sort of started coming together.

05:05.75

The Autistic Woman

Ah sure I can see that well as an autistic person Learns. What Autism is and how it's affected us. We find ourselves at times at a place where we want to know who we really are. And many of us have massed our whole lives and without knowing it We were keeping our true selves hidden from ourselves as well as the rest of the world. But you know knowing about Autism We Want to figure it out.

05:33.53

Ryan A Bush

Right.

05:35.50

The Autistic Woman

So is it fair to say that your book is kind of a map to understand what we are at our core by focusing on virtues.

05:42.00

Ryan A Bush

I think so it it it is about discovering but also learning to embody those virtues and those values and the things you admire and others and and how to sort of incorporate them into yourself. So I do think it. It certainly relates to neuro divergence and. And autism and Adhd and and all these things because we we often ah frame these as pure weaknesses or disorders or deficiencies. But actually I've I've argued that you know some of the greatest human strengths are found in these different neurotypes and so. Learning what those strengths are learning what your unique virtues are and how you can bring them together and exercise them more through your life I think is ah a huge key to fulfillment and just generally reaching a higher state of well-being.

06:32.45

The Autistic Woman

So let's talk about the things you focus on in your book like happiness and how that relates to values and Virtues I'll start with this What is happiness.

06:45.50

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, it's a ah question that we've all been sort of wrestling with for thousands of years it has so many different meanings that I often just throw out the word entirely and say let's speak about what we what we can all sort of get on the same page about you know, happiness can mean.

06:47.16

The Autistic Woman

Share. Yes.

06:58.42

The Autistic Woman

Sure.

07:02.13

Ryan A Bush

Pleasure it can mean joy. It can mean a a more enduring sense of life satisfaction and I try to make some of these distinctions a little more concrete and and so if you'd like I can I can go through the central framework and the sort of 3 dimensions of happiness that I lay out in the book.

07:11.43

The Autistic Woman

Yes.

07:18.66

The Autistic Woman

Well 1 thing is in become who you are you say that our model of happiness is inadequate. So how do the dimensions of happiness that you write about contrast with our modern view of it.

07:24.41

Ryan A Bush

Right.

07:33.27

Ryan A Bush

Right? So the the way I lay this Out. You can Imagine. There's a chessboard sitting in front of you on the table and there's sort of 2 Axes. It's ah a 2 dimensional board So you've got the X- Axis which represents pleasure and pain and this is sort of the most. Rudimentary dimension of happiness. You know, further right on the chessboard is more pleasure and further left is more pain and and as children most of us just navigate like this. We. We just do whatever brings more pleasure in the moment without really thinking long term. Then we get a little older and we learn how to pay attention to sort of longer term gain and success and that's the second dimension. The Y Axis sort of away or closer to you on the chessboard and this is where we start to engage in this balancing act where we'll. Take some short-term pleasure at times and sacrifice pleasure at other times in order to make a long-term gain and and so we're we're sort of moving around on this two-dimensional map throughout our lives. We're looking for more short-term pleasure more gain more success. Ah you know all the things that sort of add up to a better life on paper. And the problem with this way of navigating our lives is that very often. It doesn't actually map on very well to how our well-being actually works so people will have you know the best thing ever happen to them according to this two- Dimensional Map. They will win the lottery or something.

09:01.70

Ryan A Bush

And ah, they'll end up finding their happiness doesn't really improve. They're about as fulfilled in their life as they were before or they'll have the opposite happen something terrible will happen. They'll they'll lose their legs in an accident and similarly they'll end up saying oh yeah I thought this was going to be. You know the end of my life essentially and. Ah, you know a few months later it's and pretty much at the same place that I was before. So if this is the case and there are countless examples of this probably you can come up with some in your own life where you got everything you wanted and you weren't any happier or vice versa. If this is the case we've got a bad map. We've got a faulty two-dimensional map when we need more information or or we need different variables to be making our decisions off of and this is where I introduce this third dimension and sort of imagine extruding mountains and valleys out of this chessboard so that we're. Now looking at a 3 dimensional topographical chessboard with you know mountains that we can move up on or valleys we can go down into and what I argue is that there's a third dimension here. That's actually determining our happiness sort of under the surface while we're paying attention to these you know. On the surface level considerations of of gain and pleasure and this third dimension corresponds to what we might call admirability or virtue right? The the things that we admire in ourselves and the way we bring out our unique strengths and our lives.

10:27.82

The Autistic Woman

Right? And you say you're as happy as the trait you observe in your own behavior. So is that what you're talking about in this case.

10:34.26

Ryan A Bush

Yes, exactly and this this is something I've I've I've come to this conclusion from several different levels from looking at clinical depression and its correlates from looking at the happiest people in the world and and those who study them. You very much I think find and and I've found when looking back through my own life that the best times in your life when you feel the most satisfied are those when you have ways of bringing out your greatest strengths on a daily basis and the times that you feel the most depressed the most low and and unsatisfied in your life are those. Times when you have very little outlet or you you have very little evidence of those virtues that you are really good at and so navigating your life becomes a question of how can I exercise my strengths more today than I did yesterday. How can I provide an outlet for these. Ah, greatest virtues that are sort of latent within me.

11:30.55

The Autistic Woman

Okay, and you so you write that Virtue is the key to happiness. But that is more than just being a good person. So what is virtue as you describe it in your book and why is it The key.

11:43.54

Ryan A Bush

Virtue has this kind of outdated connotation today. It sort of sounds like a preachy moral purity kind of thing and I think there's some of that there there are certain you know virtues like honesty. For example that have a moral sort of foundation. But I think.

11:48.40

The Autistic Woman

Yes, right.

12:02.67

Ryan A Bush

It can include everything from courage to creativity to compassion Charisma All these different traits that that we generally consider good when we look at another person who is demonstrating one of these traits we feel admiration or respect for them. Ah, and there really doesn't have to be a reason.. It's not a means to an end necessarily.. It's just admirable in itself and we often find when we study different cultures that there are certain universal virtues. There are certain things that humans just tend to admire as a general pattern and. These are clearly built into our minds in a very deep way and so actually exercising these strengths and essentially becoming someone that you admire more and more in in a sort of habitual sense is really this key to bring out these different virtues which you know range from having.

12:40.49

The Autistic Woman

And.

12:57.43

Ryan A Bush

Roots in moral or communal or interpersonal tribal. All these different sort of categories that they can fall into and and potential origins for how they may have arisen.

13:07.40

The Autistic Woman

So I may diverge for a minute and ask you how you discovered you're autistic and how did that affect you.

13:15.42

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so this all plays into this same sort of story that occurred in you know, several years ago so like I said I was working part time I was trying to get this book out I was struggling to you know make the book everything that I had wanted it to be. I was struggling at work because you know I was I was feeling less a part of the team I was more alienated than ever and I was feeling like the the way my role had shifted I was no longer really good at what I was doing on a regular basis I was doing tedious engineering drafting work and. And that was really not what I was ever good at I thrived more at at the creative vision side and I wasn't I wasn't able to do that and so I wasn't seeing evidence of the things that I really admired in my professional space and I also had um, some some things calling my interpersonal. Strengths into question I had a coworker in particular who took kind of an immediate dislike to me and you know at one point I could tell that there was a problem in our interactions and I sort of asked her to meet me at a brewery and and tried to build some goodwill and empathy there and and. Ended up having like the opposite effect. She ended up sort of tearing down my book project right? criticizing me at work and and at 1 point she diagnosed me essentially unsolicitedly with autism and and so after that kind of jarring experience I went and.

14:31.38

The Autistic Woman

Oh no I know.

14:43.14

The Autistic Woman

Um.

14:49.90

Ryan A Bush

Started doing my own research and decided the worst thing about that whole exchange was that she was right and at the time this was very bad news I was sort of researching and finding more and more when I looked at you know other people who were talking about their experience with autism that it sounded exactly like my experience. And eventually I sort of accepted it and and this put me through sort of ah an identity crisis I started asking myself What does this mean about me does this mean I'm not likable or or that I've been sort of imagining that I was socially competent all these years and that I had gradually climbed up in my you know social skills. And really you know I haven't improved at all I have a disorder. It's sort of fundamental to my brain. Um, these were a lot of the questions I was asking and and as a result of both that and my you know professional life sort of being in a transitional period and then a pandemic on top of it that.

15:45.18

The Autistic Woman

Ah sure right.

15:45.75

Ryan A Bush

Doesn't tend to improve things and you know having a lot of my previous social outlets and communities sort of cut off I Really found myself in an echo Chamber where I was questioning my own worth my own strengths and and finding myself feeling. Ah. Kind of depressed in a ah longer term sense than I ever had before.

16:07.93

The Autistic Woman

Well, you know a lot of us find that ah it is hard to accept that these traits can't be changed I think especially autistics because we think if we just study it enough or practice it enough. We can make it kind of at least that 1 thing can kind of go away. We can conquer it so it's.

16:16.63

Ryan A Bush

Finish.

16:24.47

The Autistic Woman

It's pretty hard for us sometimes to accept that it's not going to change but in your book you talk about something called Virtue signaling and that you would once you knew you're Autistic. You would actually make an effort to keep some of your good qualities like creativity and intellect and things like that to yourself. And I know autistics sometimes do this because we have imposter syndrome or we don't know how to respond in social situations. But what did you discover about virtue signaling and approval seeking behavior and how it might actually be important.

17:00.98

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, well first I I definitely relate to that attempting to overcome my challenges by over intellectualizing them I remember being you know, just in middle school and trying to build out almost a ah tree of like if then responses when I'm in social situations

17:18.30

Ryan A Bush

You know, like pre-plan jokes so that I could bring humor into the situation and and you know that ends up being really exhausting and kind of unsustainable. Um, but yeah I think ah the virtue signaling thing. It wasn't an imposter syndrome so much it. It was kind of a.

17:27.30

The Autistic Woman

Ah, yes, sure.

17:37.62

Ryan A Bush

When I would see other people bragging or humble bragging or or trying to show off their strengths I had this sort of aversion to it I felt like I could see through it and it was manipulative and so I would avoid doing this thing that I now know as you know virtue signaling anytime I could so I would. Try to you know, keep my creativity to myself I would try to keep people from finding out that I played piano and had been doing this for you know 15 years and um and so you know at the time that sort of made sense. But but what I discovered slowly is that there's really no avoiding.

18:02.56

The Autistic Woman

Are.

18:15.52

Ryan A Bush

This thing that we call virtue signaling. It's so deep in our brains that there really is no virtue without virtue signaling and this goes into a lot of sort of explorations of evolutionary psychology and why we developed these virtues in the first place. But ultimately the answer tends to be It's it's. Social. It has to do with our social sort of competitive landscape. Ah for building alliances and attracting mates and and ah that type of thing. So ultimately, you know you can't even be a human being. You can't even take actions without in some ways signaling what you're good at to other people.

18:53.90

Ryan A Bush

I Think ah whatm what I sort of concluded is that is bad Sick virtue signaling that we should Avoid. We should avoid talking about how we're such a likekable creative Person. We should avoid these really shallow sort of Hollow Signals. Of What we're good at and instead we should focus on bringing out our strengths through our actions rather than just talking about it. You know, don't just say that you're a really kind generous person. You know, build it into your lifestyle so that you are yes, demonstrating it signaling it. But Ultimately. Ah, the most important part signaling it to yourself and showing to your own brain that you have these positive traits that you like to think you have.

19:28.53

The Autistic Woman

Yeah,, that's key I think well you write about what impacts our self-esteem and you say ultimately the painful response we sometimes feel when someone disapproves of us is actually the pain of agreeing with them. Um, that's pretty Complex. So What does it mean to you and how does it relate to values.

19:51.20

Ryan A Bush

There's a pretty simple thought experiment. You can go through to sort of demonstrate this to yourself if you imagine first that you sort of walk into a room or or next to a room and you overhear people in the next room over talking about you and and let's say these are. Ah, few people that you really don't like you don't care about these people and and they have totally different values than you and and they're talking about you being bad at something that you've never really made an effort to be good at you don't really care about it. Well in this case hearing these insults. You know it. It may not feel great, but it's probably not going to cause you to go into an identity crisis. It's not going to cause you immense pain to hear people. You don't care about saying you're bad at things you don't care about. But if you imagine overhearing a group of people that you really respect and admire. Talking about you being just a total joke when it comes to things that you are working at every day to be good at and things you really pride yourself on that's going to be absolutely devastating right? that is going to send you into a crisis potentially and this is kind of how our self-esteem works. Ultimately, it's there to um. You know cause us to align with our own values right? and and to want to appeal to people who have similar values to us. Ultimately, we are the the audience we most need to be appealing to and that's sort of found in the way we respond differently to.

21:19.50

Ryan A Bush

Ah, insults or criticism from certain people and so really I think even though it seems like we often care a lot about what other people think about us we mostly care about what we think about us and when someone criticizes us in a way that actually seems to be true and we agree with them. Really That's when it stings and that's when we know we need to make a change and and so I think I think sometimes we get confused about this. But ultimately we should be focused on earning our own admiration first and foremost and when we do that. We will also earn the admiration of people who have similar values to us and communities and mates that we'd actually be a good fit for.

21:58.39

The Autistic Woman

Sure that and that makes sense now in the book you talk quite openly about depression and what contributed to it for you and at one point you say that you know when you realize you're autistic and tried to appear normal and and you are aware you were doing that. Um, then you that led to Depression. You say that the resulting self-consciousness was definitely affecting my ability to connect with others I was finding simple conversations harder than ever to get through I would go into them thinking. Okay I'm going to act like a normal person and then I wouldn't. How did this affect your view of yourself.

22:38.68

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, it's really interesting the feedback cycles that occur in our Brains. You know when when we are more self-conscious of ourselves that causes us to perform worse in social situations which causes us to become more self-conscious. Which causes us to perform worse and and it just goes on forever. Ultimately we can We can actually turn these things into self-fulfilling prophecies just by overthinking them and that's why you know there are some practices that are really effective for sort of altering these beliefs and and changing the way we think about these. But.

23:04.15

The Autistic Woman

Now.

23:14.36

Ryan A Bush

I Definitely experienced it during that first six months or so of confronting this self-diagnosis and and looking at my own behavior a little too closely and ultimately performing worse in social situations than I otherwise would and so this this definitely didn't help this whole.

23:27.13

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

23:34.21

Ryan A Bush

Complex ah of identity struggles I was going through you know Luckily you know everyone I guess was a little more forgiving during the pandemic when all of our social skills were a little more rusty and I think after that I was able to.

23:35.74

The Autistic Woman

Sure.

23:46.19

The Autistic Woman

Right.

23:51.30

Ryan A Bush

I was able to to immerse myself a little more in the social world to where I could overcome a lot of that self-consciousness that had been reawakened in me during that period.

23:59.10

The Autistic Woman

Well, you know one of the things you suggest is cbt or cognitive behavioral therapy and most you know taken at its face Value. Most autistic don't like it or feel they benefit it but that's because. Feel like it doesn't work and that they're just being taught that all you have to do is tell yourself something positive and that'll change or eliminate your problem but you explain it in a different way and you call it cognitive restructuring. So How does that work.

24:27.91

Ryan A Bush

Right? So So to be clear. There's no case for cognitive Behavioral Therapy changing or or improving autism itself or you know all this. It's really effective when it comes to negative beliefs about the self. And depression and it can be effective for things like social anxiety but that's not necessarily its strongest use case. Most of it is about ah overcoming negative beliefs about yourself that aren't accurate and certainly you are right in saying that. Just thinking happy positive thoughts is not all that effective as good as you know a general outlook of Optimism is you can't push away negative thoughts. You can't just you know think the happy thoughts and hope that they overpower the negative ones that doesn't work.

25:04.62

The Autistic Woman

My.

25:19.69

Ryan A Bush

But what has been shown really time and time again to work is actually going in and altering those beliefs with with reason. So essentially what you do is you log your thoughts you you make a just journal of thoughts that you have that are connected to certain moods. So if you experience a ah really negative mood one day you would want to write down. Well first what was the event that triggered this did I get criticism from my boss or something second. Crucially, what was the thought I was having just before I started having this bad mood. What is the belief or.

25:55.49

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

25:56.34

Ryan A Bush

Image in my head that is sort of ah triggering these negative feelings and what you'll find if you do enough of this journaling is you'll start to notice Patterns. You'll you'll start to say okay out of the last 20 entries that I've made you know 15 of them are the same type of thought the same type of Belief. And that's causing the majority of my suffering these days and then you want to go into that belief and say how might this be wrong. How might this be a distorted view. How am I framing this situation in an unfairly negative way when really, it's much more Balanced. So It's not necessarily just replacing it with the opposite. It's not thinking. Oh I'm terrible with people and then changing it to no I'm amazing with people right? It's replacing it with a more balanced view like you know I do have my challenges some of these things come more difficult to me but I'm able to improve my social skills right? and.

26:34.60

The Autistic Woman

I see. Right.

26:51.29

Ryan A Bush

Um, you know there are any number of these distortions that can be affecting us. There are some books like feeling good that actually lay out like 10 most common distortions like black and white thinking for example, excluding the positives where we you know filter out all the good examples. And only focus on the times that we you know failed or or did something negative and so by gradually getting better at identifying these distortions and and correcting inaccurate beliefs. We can eliminate a lot of the suffering that we would otherwise experience we can learn to go a lot easier on ourselves. But in a very you know, rational way. It's not just pushing out the true thoughts. It's pushing out or correcting the distorted thoughts and replacing them with something that really aligns with reality much more closely.

27:44.85

The Autistic Woman

Well you mentioned black and white thinking and unfortunately that's one of the characteristics of being autistic. However, we can at least call our attention to it and in the book you um, go through some of these cognitive distortions I think you named 10 of Them. Can you give us a little bit of an idea other than the black and white thinking might maybe what are some of the others we can watch out for.. Ah.

28:05.10

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, one of them is catastrophizing and so it's just the general tendency of taking situations and making them out to be a bigger tragedy than they actually are there are all these alternatives you know if we lose our job. We can think something like.

28:16.72

The Autistic Woman

Ah, yes.

28:23.55

Ryan A Bush

This is the end of my life I'm never going to get a good job again. This is you know it's all over I'm going to be homeless or we can go in and say no probably you know this will be a challenge for a little while but I'll probably get another job. It might actually be better than the last one I had um and and so you know that's.

28:23.59

The Autistic Woman

Are right.

28:40.74

Ryan A Bush

That's one that's ah, really important to habitualize another one is should statements so we have you know a tendency to say no one should act this way or I shouldn't do this friends shouldn't treat each other like this and and really these are often sort of baseless and.

28:45.27

The Autistic Woman

Her heart.

28:58.98

Ryan A Bush

Or they're rooted in our upbringing or something we've sort of inherited these ideas about what we should do and very often. It's just crippling it just results in this feeling that we can never do anything right? and so just eliminating those and and sort of replacing them with. Ah.

28:59.14

The Autistic Woman

All right? yes.

29:15.96

Ryan A Bush

Clearer statements about what our goals are and how we can achieve them versus just saying oh I shouldn't live like this people shouldn't treat me like that it just results in a lot of useless negative emotion.

29:28.95

The Autistic Woman

You know in your book you um, ask a question I'm going to ask it of you. How have the challenges of your life defined your character.

29:38.55

Ryan A Bush

Really good question. There's a lot of a lot of ways I mean um, you know when I look at people who seem to have it really easy. You know and and to be fair, most people have their own hidden challenges. They're struggling with but people who you know whether interpersonally or.

29:50.22

The Autistic Woman

Start.

29:55.91

Ryan A Bush

Ah, professionally things just come really naturally to them. It seems like they very often aren't challenged to the point of developing Great Character. You know when we look at Children. For example, who are praised early on for being really smart or being really pretty things that they don't really have control over. They don't develop as strong of of a work ethic as children who are praised for you know, working hard or you know overcoming that challenge and so ah, ultimately you know we we need to pride ourselves on the things that we can control in the traits that we choose to bring out every day.

30:15.33

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

30:34.50

Ryan A Bush

As opposed to these fixed things and ultimately I mean this is something that Friedrich Nietzsche who inspired the title of the book argued is that you know great struggles and you might even say suffering are conducive to greatness to you know, creative greatness to personal greatness.

30:38.90

The Autistic Woman

Um, sure.

30:53.25

Ryan A Bush

Essentially to to the cultivation of great virtues and when we look at the idle life of Comfort. You know people who have never really been challenged. They just don't have a reason to develop these drinks I mean they have plenty of sort of hidden reason because ah you know you would develop greater. Self admirationration and well-being, but there's nothing actually pushing you and that's why the sort of Golden Handcuff situation where you're really comfortable can be kind of dangerous because it doesn't push you to develop your greatness to the same degree.

31:25.81

The Autistic Woman

Now Do you feel that Neuro divergence has limited you in any way that you didn't expect.

31:34.34

Ryan A Bush

It's It's definitely limited me but I'm grateful for the limitations in many ways I mean I've I've learned that I'm probably never going to be a social butterfly and that's a little disappointing because you know I want to be good at everything don't we all right? um.

31:40.43

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

31:46.22

The Autistic Woman

Ah, of course yes.

31:52.70

Ryan A Bush

But I think ah I think those limitations can be healthy. They they allow me to focus more on other strengths and and to focus on you know, mitigating the weaknesses where I can but not necessarily exhausting myself trying to become something that just isn't. Really meant to be I mean when I look at my work situation now versus a few years ago there's so much self insight that's allowed me to to cater to my own strengths and weaknesses I mean my old job I was constantly. Ah, in meetings I was I was getting distracted constantly from the deep work that I'm really good at because this is how a lot of workplaces operate I was having to socialize and work simultaneously and that's always been really difficult for me. Well I've luckily developed that self-knowledge to know. That's not a good situation for me.

32:33.73

The Autistic Woman

I sure.

32:43.29

Ryan A Bush

And I've crafted my own business to not really work that way so you know I give myself you know, very distinct large chunks of just deep focus time and I kind of minimize meetings and and I minimize my reliance on other people. So I you know I probably could have built a team of people and. You know gone out and gotten investors and and all these things where I would have been more reliant on others but I've just learned that I really thrive when I'm self-reliant when I'm not engaging in constant meetings and and back and forth with other people and So. Ah, that that knowledge of my limitations has allowed me to sort of rig the game in my favor and create a situation that you would hardly even know I have the weaknesses that I do because they just aren't that relevant to my day-to-day operation.

33:33.75

The Autistic Woman

That's amazing and I think we're all striving for that to look at our limitations in a positive Way. You know one of the things you talk about in the book though is having a partner who's been supportive and I found that it is. Something that makes all the difference and that is to have this other person in your life I think it's given me more courage to do things I might not otherwise have done. But how do you feel? It's benefited. You.

34:01.39

Ryan A Bush

Yeah I will give some context on this because I recently went on a podcast ah called neurodiverse love where I was talking about my relationship with my partner and how she has you know, not long after I diagnosed myself with autism. She diagnosed herself with Adhd.

34:02.56

The Autistic Woman

Sure.

34:18.63

Ryan A Bush

And ah and I've I've learned how ah valuable having a you know Neuro divergent relationship really is and and how much more compatible I am with someone who ah thinks in you know, maybe a different way than the average person and ah and and that's been a really really positive thing I think.

34:19.29

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

34:27.70

The Autistic Woman

Ah.

34:38.24

Ryan A Bush

I have a tendency to hyper focus on my work to neglect my own emotional and social needs and and and having someone like her who who just has such a refreshing kind of goofiness and pulls me out of my ah you know tunnel vision at times.

34:42.55

The Autistic Woman

Um.

34:57.77

Ryan A Bush

It's really really helpful and I think you know she was one of the reasons why I was only you know, mildly sort of moderately depressed during that period and not more because I did have this person who really loved me and saw me for who I am and and um, you know didn't didn't contribute to reaffirming some of these negative. Beliefs that I was wrestling with at the time.

35:19.76

The Autistic Woman

Um, well, what's next for Ryan Bush

35:25.42

Ryan A Bush

Oh man and that's a good question that the immediate next step. Um I guess I should kind of add that you know the way that this sort of identity struggle resolved is that I won I got out of that job that you know I really wasn't feeling. Valued at I started working with another startup that was a complete one eighty I was really being valued for my creative contributions every day I launched that book and ah turns out it actually has done really well and has sort of built a community where I'm able to. Ah, contribute my strengths on a ah daily basis and really bring together all those things that I've always been good at in separate domains and and it really um, you know it. It brought me to the highest level of well-being that I've ever experienced. So. It's the the complete opposite of that depressive period in many ways. And ah yeah, it's been a really incredible thing and I've also sort of changed the way I look at Autism. It's It's no longer something that I feel like is a negative disorder or something to be ashamed of it's very much. Ah, something that I I take pride in and and I acknowledge the unique strengths that come along with it and and and so as for what's next I'm for one I'm I'm focused on getting this book out there so that I can bring these ideas to a greater.

36:46.97

The Autistic Woman

Course.

36:51.81

Ryan A Bush

Audience Impact More people's lives who may have had similar struggles and also bring more people into the designing the mind ecosystem I'm really working on developing mind form which is this community platform I've Built. It's sort of like a mental. Training gym if you will and and it's really centered around learning a lot of these psychological skills that I've discovered through these experiences and then I've got lots more projects I Want to develop ah an app for teaching people these these principles as well and these methods for sort of gradually overcoming. These mental challenges and and depression and anxiety all these things. So Lots of lots of um, big ambitions around the corner.

37:34.28

The Autistic Woman

Yeah I had a feeling that you would have something planned as to keep going in this track because it sure is exciting now is there anything I didn't ask you that you'd like the listeners to know about.

37:49.28

Ryan A Bush

Oh man, it's ah it's a long, a long book and there's a lot of different angles. There's so many we could explore but you know in general I think I think the idea of paying very close attention to your own ideals your own values.

37:50.13

The Autistic Woman

Yeah here. Yes, sure.

38:06.26

Ryan A Bush

Your own feelings of admiration writing down the people that you admire most and the traits that you admire most about them and asking How can I use these traits as a blueprint or a compass for directing my own life. How can I bring more of these into my own character.

38:12.50

The Autistic Woman

Ah, hi.

38:22.82

Ryan A Bush

And ah, and really paying a lot more attention to this internal compass than any you know, external advice anyone telling you what someone in your group should do what? Ah, an autistic person should do a person with Adhd should do ah really really increasing your trust in your own. Values and intuitions I think is is the best way to direct your life. So.

38:43.78

The Autistic Woman

Well I agree with you I've read the book I found it very inspiring I finished reading it and just had a whole new view about things and we can't possibly talk about all of it here but people can find out more about it and what would they do to.

38:54.81

Ryan A Bush

Right.

39:00.61

The Autistic Woman

Find more and about you and about your book.

39:02.35

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so designingthemind.org/becoming is the best sort of all all on 1 resource to go to you can preorder the new book there and it's currently at a ridiculously low price that it won't be for long but then you also can. Download a couple of free books that I'm giving away so you can get the psytex toolkit and the book of selfmastery which is kind of a quote compilation I've put together instantly just sent to your email if you put it in there. So and that'll introduce you to a lot more of the.

39:23.68

The Autistic Woman

Aha.

39:38.78

Ryan A Bush

Core principles and and the work that I've created I've I've created a number of online programs and communities and and physical products too. All centered around these ideas. So there's a lot to discover there.

39:51.60

The Autistic Woman

That's amazing Ryan I appreciate talking with you today I've learned a lot and it's nice to have it reinforced as well I am autistic and I'm so glad you are willing to share your story with us. So thank you again.

40:04.28

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, thank you Susan it was a great conversation and I appreciate you having me.

40:08.44

The Autistic Woman

Yeah, all right? So that will end the recording part.